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Geoff Craig, MBA / January 11, 2018

Why Millennials Should Consider Truck Driving Careers

Last Updated: June 8th, 2022

Have you considered a career as a professional truck driver? Did you know there are jobs for professional truckers that go unfilled every year? The trucking profession still has career opportunities for young job seekers.

Table Of Contents
  1. Millennials and the Future of Work
    • Change is Coming for Everyone Looking for Work
  2. Why Trucking is a Viable Career Option
  3. Advantages of Truckers with CDL
  4. Truckers Face Automation Eventually
  5. Get Your CDL and Open Your Horizons
  6. Truck Driver Salaries
  7. Join a Profession that Opens Doors

If you’re a Millennial, you were born after 1980, and you may have different career expectations from previous generations. Would it surprise you to learn that trucking can be a positive experience and a step forward on your blue-collar career path?

young truck drivers

The Millennial generation has now become the dominant demographic segment of the workforce. Meanwhile, the forecast for employment is for turbulence in the coming decades. If you decide to become a trucker in the next few years, you’ll be in a better than average position to ride the employment wave.

Millennials and the Future of Work

The trucking industry needs drivers, and if you’re a young person, you’ll still be able to find well-paying jobs as a trucker in the next few years. In the near future, you’re likely to face drastic career changes regardless of your job description. Why not train for employment that leads to future opportunities?

The transportation industry has a wide variety of jobs for workers who hold commercial drivers licenses (CLDs). Driving eighteen-wheelers across the continent is still an option, but many trucking jobs stay closer to home.

Change is Coming for Everyone Looking for Work

There once was a mythical time, when workers left high school, joined a company and stayed for all their adult lives. One thing’s for sure: Work’s not like that anymore. If you’re starting out on your journey of work in the twenty-first century, you’ll probably have several different careers throughout your life.

For unskilled workers, rapid changes and innovations will mean going from one service job to another, and possibly extended periods of unemployment in between. When you have even a few months of experience as a commercial driver, you’ll have a platform from which you can launch into other, more prosperous careers in the industrial world of the future.

Why Trucking is a Viable Career Option

The trucking business offers a luxury that other industries don’t have; drivers are in demand. In fact, there’s still a shortage of qualified CDL holders across North America. Employers have to compete to hire experienced truckers, and they’re crying out for new drivers. The trucker shortage is driving the investment in automation, but it’s also the reason that you can start a career in trucking now.

Experienced drivers can cross-train into technical fields such as maintenance and manufacturing. For ambitious Millennials who want to lead people and make decisions, there will be opportunities to advance into management careers.

Advantages of Truckers with CDL

The demand for drivers means that many of the large trucking companies pay for candidates to train for their CDLs. The transportation industry is subsidizing new drivers right now. The threat of replacement by self-driving trucks is still just an idea.

Your priority as a newly licensed trucker will be to gain experience on the road so that you can apply for advanced, better-paying CDL jobs. Experience will bring you a rising income and multiple paths beyond driving that can lead to real prosperity.

Companies in logistics, supply chain distribution, and industries that spread across the continent, often hire people with CDL experience for good, non-driving jobs. These companies understand that truckers with a few years on the road are responsible people who have the maturity to succeed in any workplace.

Truckers Face Automation Eventually

You may have heard in the media that self-driving trucks are taking over. While the research is moving ahead and the potential threat to jobs is real, it’s going to take time. The first jobs that get automated will be the long-haul positions that employers struggle to fill.

cdl training school search

Traditional OTR teams consist of pairs of drivers, who take turns behind the wheel so they can drive day and night. Teams are likely to be replaced by single drivers who relax in sleeper cabs on the open road.

These lone truckers will only take the wheel on city streets as they leave and approach the depots. Other driving jobs that involve delivery routes and congested urban traffic will be around longer.

Get Your CDL and Open Your Horizons

The first step to a trucking career is to investigate the possibilities in your region. Once you decide to commit to trucking, get all of the background work such as the physical examination out of the way. Request a copy of your driving record from your state’s DMV. Next, apply for a trucking job that trains in-house or sponsors tuition.

When you earn your CDL, you’re going to have truck driving job options. No company has started replacing jobs with robot drivers just yet. Even when the first fully automated trucks roll out, the driver-shortage will absorb the impact in the first few years.

After the first fleets commit to the substantial cost of robotic trucks, any time a self-driving truck crashes it’ll be national news. When accidents happen, whole fleets of self-driving cargo vehicles are likely to be grounded, awaiting investigative conclusions, service recalls, and software updates; any setbacks could add years to rollout timetables.

Truck Driver Salaries

How much a trucker makes reflect the demand for CDL holders.

The industry calculates truck driver salaries based on experience. It’s the hours behind the wheel and miles you drive that count in trucking. The conventional way to calculate pay in the industry is cent per mile or CPM. The more experience you have, the higher the rate employers will offer you.

Federal rules limit the hours you can drive and dictate mandatory rest periods. So, there is a cap CPM, but trucking companies pay for other things too.

Due to the demand for good drivers, trucking fleet operators provide bonuses for such things as performance, recruiting referrals, and, of course, subsidized training.

Join a Profession that Opens Doors

Trucking is not for everyone. Long hours on the road and isolated, ever-changing workdays appeal to some people and not others. However, many different freight companies are still hungry to hire new drivers and subsidize their training.

Just remember that the world is changing fast. Workers these days are likely to have many short-term positions. The most successful Millennials will be proactive, continually seeking to advance their careers.

As a Millennial about to enter the job market, a truck-driving career can still give you a well-paid blue-collar job in just a few years of experience. Whether you find that you love trucking or not, there are plenty of job options. Earning your CDL is a strategic move that will open up immediate employment opportunities and prepare you for an ever-changing future of work.

Geoff Craig
Geoff Craig, MBA
+ Articles

Geoff is a freelance writer with 20+ years of experience in driving trucks and buses, dispatching, supervising, and training commercial driving teams. His expertise is writing topics on the transportation and trucking industry, and information technology trends.

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Filed Under: Blog, Career, Truck Driving Tagged With: millenials, truck driver career

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. rachel frampton says

    November 26, 2020 at 5:58 am

    My brother Ethan would like to have a career in truck driving, which is why he’s thinking of taking a driver compliant course. Well, you’re also right that if he’s licensed, this will mean that he would be able to obtain a better job. I also appreciate your idea of requesting a copy of the driving record.

    Reply
  2. Franklin White says

    August 20, 2020 at 8:19 pm

    Wow, I had no idea that trucking companies are in desperate need of truckers. My younger brother is in his early twenties and doesn’t want to go to college. I’ll talk to him about becoming a trucker so he can start his career right now rather than just sitting on his butt all day.

    Reply
  3. Moon says

    July 17, 2019 at 6:31 am

    Be careful who you drive for Celeron and Dr england low ball on pay and safety keep your money other companies promise pay you will not see it miles or hours .dententiin pay after 2 hours you will work free for 100 to 159 hours a month free. You are expected to work 14 hrs a day paid 9 to ten and you will have to flip flop schedules around the clock. .money is not there unless you own a truck and have good brokers .be careful time off is 3 days in 21 days and if your not local very little money to be made .make sure single or spouse team and little kids this is to tough on them they need you home .good luck out there .do not let dispatch push you and safety first .tired bad weather stop .and if weight not right don’t run .also if something wrong with truck or trailer don t run .get fixed .do not be pushed .your life and your family count on you and so does safety fir public .watch out for car haulers and cattle via pig hauler s take care in your career decisions

    Reply
  4. Benjamin says

    July 10, 2019 at 7:55 am

    Truck drivers need to get paid overtime over 40 hours driving a week

    Reply
  5. James Paw says

    April 29, 2019 at 5:31 am

    Spell check

    Reply
  6. Kyle says

    April 27, 2019 at 6:03 pm

    I have been driving for 6 years I’m 27 years old making around $90,000 a her home everyday hauling cans in Tacoma and Seattle

    Reply
  7. justin ethridge says

    April 8, 2019 at 9:52 pm

    It makes me laugh when low paying companies pay for these ads. Beg them to come to fill your shitty company’s seats. And still they won’t come. You even try to replace us with automation. But your tech isn’t good enough without drivers riding with it. And no self respecting driver would ever let you use them like that.

    Reply
    • Kevin Curry says

      October 27, 2019 at 7:48 pm

      That’s so true, as the new generation is thinking about work I can guarantee that these millineals are not willing to give up free time while working and or be away from friends and family and most of all life. As we veteran drivers we know what the sacrifice is and take it. I don’t blame any millineals for not getting into driving truck as they have much more options then we had.

      Reply
  8. WILLIAM says

    March 25, 2019 at 10:47 am

    LoL why because they will paid them nothing to do that job and kill trucking for the usa people.

    Reply
  9. John toner says

    March 16, 2019 at 1:47 pm

    I drove for 45 years 3 months the job is what u make of it but just remember don’t let ur dispatcher or he or safety drive ur truck most time all 3 that I just mention don’t have any experience at all driving ur the boss so if u feel rd too bad to b on it safety don’t nothing in the trailer on flatbed or in a tanker is worth a person or persons life products can b replace but u can’t

    Reply
  10. Ron says

    February 16, 2019 at 10:20 pm

    If you have options, do not become a truck driver. Most companies lie about pay. Even when they don’t, most jobs require 60+ hours a week to get that pay. There are good trucking jobs out there; but, nowhere near enough for everyone. Couple that with not being able to use toilets, nowhere to park, and cops that try to make every accident your fault even when the other driver says it’s their fault, and you get that is just not worth it if you have options.

    Reply
    • Peter says

      June 18, 2019 at 6:34 pm

      Such a negative attitude will not get you anywhere. If your focus is to permanently be employed sorry. You are doing yourself a disservice. Self employment is the thing. Get into trucking get experience buy your truck and do real business…get rich.

      Reply
  11. Sandra J Irwin says

    January 7, 2019 at 4:07 am

    They aren’t about to lower themselves to the level of being “just a truck driver”-. Not while they feel entitled to having all the money they need and live with their parents and have liberal thinking. I drove truck for 43 years and still drive during the summer. It treated me well. And I was willing to put forth the effort to learn and work hard. Not like these crybabies who think they can get it without working for it. Sad

    Reply
  12. Manuel Candelaria says

    January 6, 2019 at 1:16 pm

    I have been in this industry for 35 yrs.It used to be an industry that paid good now its that over works its employees
    Do not give enough time off because they only give 34 hrs off between runs if you are road or regional driver n 10hrs of if you are local.and that times starts.When you get to terminal.I was also a driver instructor for a company n a teacher @ a school.You dont mention that a driver do not get paid for waiting to unload.But the company
    Get paid for detention time.Its a hard life dont glamourtise it.People have life and in the trucking industry you dont have a life.its not a stable industry.And dont forget to mention.60 to 70 hrs work week with no overtime.Drivers work many hours for free.You have to give up family time.and more.And the abuse by shippers and Receivers and employers
    So dont glamourtise this industry.

    Reply
    • Tony says

      August 8, 2019 at 6:12 pm

      👍well said NOT TO MENTION THEY WANT A FORTUNE FOR HEALTH INS. FOR YOUR FAMILY

      Reply
    • Kevin says

      October 27, 2019 at 7:54 pm

      I totally agree 💯👍
      Trucking anymore isn’t worth the hastle of being away from friends and family, let know working for free.
      I now work for the state I live in and love it. Wish I could have done so early on in my life.
      God bless everyone…

      Reply

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